Archive for August 29th, 2009

You know my friend Dawn? The one who recommended the masseuse to me for Firefly? Well, she graduated last weekend with her master’s degree. We’re all very proud of her and think she’s a pretty awesome chick. She had a little party today to celebrate, so after checking in with her wife on some specifics I made her this cake:

Here’s a little close up on the cap:

There was a bit of a fiasco last night that led to me having to completely remake half of it (let’s just say that I should stick with what I know when it comes to greasing pans). Good thing I had extra on hand! Luckily Firefly was able to save me–and the other half–so I didn’t have to remake that one, too, especially since I didn’t have supplies to remake that one.

The cake was one half butter pecan and the other lemon. I don’t have a book cake pan, so last night I baked the halves separately, stacked and hand carved it, then frosted it with buttercream. I covered it with fondant today and scored it around the edges with my small frosting knife to make it look more like pages. I used gold shimmer dust on the pages, and the writing is piped on buttercream that I colored a lighter blue. The graduation cap was a chocolate cupcake turned upside down, iced with buttercream and then covered with fondant. The top of the cap was a fondant/gumpaste blend to add some stiffness (and I am amazed that I was able to match the color with the bottom perfectly), and the tassel was gumpaste that I colored yellow and then brushed with gold shimmer dust–although I made it ahead of time and set it to dry, then put it on in the car when we got there, so as you can see it was a little bit too long. Oh well!

I used up the rest of the blue icing on the cupcakes–that I had baked in gold foil cups–and took the whole batch to the party, too. It was all a big hit.